TCL 006: The Father; My Father—With My Voice, I am Calling You
Yes, that's right, I did it, and I feel quite happy with the decision.
Perhaps the decision was already made and I did not even know it.
(If you missed the dilemma & a premium subscriber you can read about it here.)
But as one subscriber said in an email about this "dilemma,"
You are the word/the art–second to last para. Dig into that and you will have your answer.
Thank you Vicky for pointing me in the direction of the answer.
So yes, I made a decision to change the name, and I am very happy with the choice—The Contemplative Life: the search for truth, peace, and the sacred - whatever that means.
I believe this captures well what I am attempting to do here. This trinity of "truth, peace, and the sacred" bodes well for further investigation, and can map to the father, son, and holy spirit, and the Buddha, dharma, and sangha just as well.
Exploring these themes is a good thing in and of itself—with lots of room to riff on contemporary cultural issues, as well as the historical context within which these topics have their roots. I'm excited to see where it leads.
And it connects nicely to where I am at with my practice. So rather than me "on top of the mountain" preaching about this or that, it will be more interesting to write as I discover the numinous life. This will be a far more interesting read for you too.
I think this is how I got interested in looking across traditions where the religious experience is not shunned but celebrated. This has its own set of problems which I will not go into now but suffice it to say, my tradition does not suffer from those problems but it does suffer from its own set.
I will go into more detail about what and how I see the numinous life—why I feel it is something missing in the Western versions of Buddhism, and modern culture more generally, and how we can benefit from what it has to offer.
But for now, and fear of this being too long-winded, I will leave it at that.